don’t eat the glowing squirrels

NJ officials say: don’t eat the squirrels, they’re contaminated with toxic waste

Where do I even begin???

Is this why the various revisions of Joy of Cooking don’t have entries on how to skin and prepare squirrels anymore?

Bush Administration VS Science: FITE!

Bush Administration VS Science: FITE!

Jeff Smith “The Frugal Gourmet ” Dies

Jeff Smith “The Frugal Gourmet ” Dies

Ok, so everyone knows all too well that

Ok, so everyone knows all too well that Friends and Frasier have ended, but where is the publicity for NBC’s greatest loss? Next week’s season finale of Law & Order is the last episode with Jerry Orbach as Lennie Briscoe. This man is more deserving of a Katie Couric special more than Kelsey Grammer! With Briscoe gone, Law & Order might as well be over.

Check out these photos and try not cry. A coffee cup! Cheesecake! Sigh.

Law and Order: Special Victims Unit

Law and Order: Special Victims Unit celebrated its 100th episode by airing one of its most freakiest. Castration in Grand Central Station, (Cragen “Penectomy, how often do I get to use that word?” Me: “Have you forgotten what show you’re on??”)(Also, since when can you say “pecker” on network TV?) a “Catholic vampire” aka a Nosferatu-looking underground-dwellin’ porphyria sufferer, dungeon masters and kidnapped brides in dog collars, and good old stunt casting in the form of Jacqueline Bisset. And the original Tzeitel and the tailor Motel Kamzoil together again! (Or not. Motel was dead before they got to judge Tzeitel’s chambers. God has unmade a man today.)

Women be shopping! And lose their minds!

Women be shopping! And lose their minds!

So buying expensive things make women crazy, and yet bargain hunters are crazy, too? But don’t you need math skills to figure out real bargains? And men only want to buy cars and electronic gadgets? And John Gray DIDN’T fund this study?

The photograph in Linda McCartney’s

The photograph in Linda McCartney’s Home Cooking of ‘exciting non-meat products’ is frankly quite scary. The copyright of the books says 1987, but these products have a look that’s pure 70s. Vegetarian food packaging has improved tremendously in the past twenty years. Veggie food now looks fun! And edible. Although now faux meats get named ‘Black Bean Burger’ and ‘Deli Style Ham’ instead of ‘Stripples’, ‘Bolono’, and ‘Wham’. Why did no one every market lamb substitute Blam?

I bought the Cutco Knives cookbook…

I bought the Cutco Knives cookbook for the possibility of garish fifties food photos. After buying it, and actually reading the recipes, I realise, oh, it’s a MEAT cookbook, it won’t be overly useful as a cookbook to me. But oh, it’s so twisted the entertainment value is worth the $1.

Yes, yes, there’s the variety meats photo spread (bleurrgh) and the MEAT IS GOOD propaganda. But! The illustrations! Frank Marcello is an insane genius.

The piece de resistance is his full page illustration of an outdoor barbecue. Laws of physics are flagrantly violated. The sun not only has a face, it’s a slightly demented one. There is the weirdest interpretation of a cat ever to grace a mainstream publication (Louis Wain’s got nothin’ on old Frank.) There’s a man with very hairy forearms. There’s a woman holding the world’s largest baby. There’s a dog that is apparently wearing galoshes. And people think drugs were a sixties thing! Frank, would you mind sharing with the rest of the class?

Elsewhere is the old standby of anthropomorphized food. (And god knows how weird THAT is) Pork gets the most of this treatment, and these pigs are crazy. ‘Cooked smoked ham’ has a pig reclining on a circular couch while puffing a on cigarette in a holder. Barbecued ham steaks show a Drunk Pig sitting next to a bottle of cider. I know people were total alcoholics in the fifties but pigs, too?

I watched some sort of medical mystery show about Toxic Shock Syndrome

I watched some sort of medical mystery show about Toxic Shock Syndrome on Discovery Health. If the show is supposed to be a suspenceful mystery, it’s a bit of a failure as there’s not much mystery if you have been paying attention to women’s health issues for the last 30 years. What is this bad orange makeup mystery disease epidemic affecting young women? And how are they all contracting toxic shock? Gosh, I don’t know! Will the doctors and epidemiologists ever figure it out? The kicker is when all the CDC types finally do figure out the link between the sick women and say “well it was this certain brand of tampon, and it got recalled” without naming Rely and naughty, naughty Proctor and Gamble! (Hmmm, maybe I should start paying attention to what commercials are on Discovery. P&G’s Swiffer gets a lot of ad time on Discovery’s TLC.) And the show implies that the industry responded with an absorbancy standard immediately. Hey! Guess what! It didn’t! (Are you surprised?) While this TSS crisis occurred in 1980, according to Karen Houppert in The Curse, it wasn’t until 1990 that the FDA and the tampon industry implemented the now familar standard. But, oh my, let’s not get into the politics of women’s health on tv, shall we?

Last week introduced the new ADA on

Last week introduced the new ADA on Law and Order: SVU (IMDB is no help on character name, and I am not motivated to research any more extensively. The only thing I learned is the actress is less than a month older than I am? NOOOOOO.) I can’t say I really care for Magic Hairstyle ADA Barbie Midge, though I doubt she will reach Rohmian levels of incompetence. Check out the lesbo tension between her and Detective Benson though (yeah, I know, Benson and a lady lawyer and UST WHAT a surprise), especially during the “yeah I have no social/sex life, none of us detectives do” scene. LEZ UP, BENSON, LEZ UP!!!

Also: Why are the regular cast characters looking suddenly ten years older? Especially Ms Hargitay who is sportin’ the matching hair and skin look, which is never good.

As for the plot, what is going on??? Martin Donovan, you are obviously guilty following the Jessica Fletcher Rules of Stunt Casting but fake veins WHAT? At least they have returned to to plot twists that are actual twists i.e. not completely predictable. (The manner of Cabot’s demise, I actually DIDN’T see it coming. Sure, we all knew she was goin’, but WHOA check out all those fake outs!)